On-orbit calibration of sun sensor’s central point error for triad

Abstract

In this paper, a novel sun sensor which has been applied on orbit since 2018 is introduced. The remote data transmitted from the satellite is analyzed to show its performance. In the lighting area, the sun sensor can give the sun vector which used for the attitude determination. From the data, the center point error is found to be the most significant factor that affects the accuracy of the sun sensor. In the “Sun pointing” work mode, the real output of the sun sensor is different from the theoretical output. The data from the star sensor is used for compensating the center point error based on ellipse fitting. The triad algorithm is affected by the center point error of the sun sensor. The simulation only considers this kind of error. And the result shows that it can decrease the Euler angle errors, so that improves the accuracy of triad algorithm.

Keywords

• on-orbit data
• calibration
• sun sensor
• central point
• ellipse fitting
• triad